Argentine –
Javier Milei promises more “chainsaw” spending
While he has already eliminated more than 33,000 civil servant positions, Argentine President Javier Milei plans to continue on this path in 2025.
Published today at 12:39 a.m.
Javier Milei, in Buenos Aires, November 20, 2024.
AFP
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Argentina’s ultraliberal President Javier Milei said Tuesday that he would continue to cut public spending with a chainsaw in 2025, continuing an austerity program that has already eliminated 33,000 public jobs in less than a year of government. .
“I have started to think about the government’s measures for what 2025 will be like. Given the panorama, I confirm that I will continue hard with the chainsaw. LONG LIVE FREEDOM, DAMN IT!” wrote Javier Milei on his X account.
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Since his inauguration in December 2023, the “anarcho-capitalist” Milei, as he describes himself, has led a drastic austerity program, with the objective of a “zero budget deficit”, closing state organizations and freezing construction sites. public, drying up subsidies (energy, transport, etc.), tightening funding to the provinces, among others.
Shock therapy
The “chainsaw” is a key visual symbol of candidate Milei during his victorious 2023 presidential campaign, a machine that he readily brandished during meetings, his weapon against the “enemy state”.
The Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation, Federico Sturzenegger, recently highlighted that the government had eliminated 33,291 public jobs at the end of October, including more than 20,000 in the central administration, and 11,000 in public companies.
With this shock therapy, the government welcomes a return to consecutive monthly budget surpluses since the start of 2024, unprecedented in Argentina for 16 years. And inflation decelerating around +3% to 4% monthly, compared to 17% on average for the year 2023.
52% of the population is poor
The economy is, however, mired in recession, and GDP is expected to contract by 3.5% at the end of 2024 according to the IMF, which however predicts a strong recovery in 2025, at +5%.
Poverty affected more than 52% of the population in the first half of the year, according to official figures, a jump of 11 percentage points in six months. Even if Javier Milei affirms that after a peak at the beginning of 2024, under the impact of the first shock measures (devaluation of December 2023 in particular), poverty has started to decline.
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